Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DISPLAYING DEFINTTIONS OF SELECTED WORDS IN A
TELEVISION PROGRAM
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to TV programs, and more
specifically to a method and system for assisting the watcher of
a TV program in catching information or explanation about words
used in a current program.
~ T l~Tl/'~'D/1TTAT1'1
The watcher of a TV program may not understand some
words that he hears or reads. For example, some words used in a
scientific TV program may not be understood by all the watchers.
Further, backgrounds of the watchers are different. So, the
words that are not understood are not the same for all the
watchers of a TV program.
To get an explanation about a word that he does not
understand on a TV program, a watcher could of course look it up
in a dictionary while watching TV. Most often, the time needed
to find explanation makes that the watcher misses an important
part of the TV program.
Some interactive TV programs already exist, in which a
watcher can press a dedicated button to switch to another
channel dedicated to the field of the TV program. Such a channel
broadcasts, in loop, explanation about topics chosen by the
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broadcaster and contained in the TV program. A drawback is that
the explanations are broadcasted as goes the TV program and,
when switching to the explanation channel, the watcher has to
read explanation of other topics before the information he is
looking for comes again in the broadcasted loop. During that
time, the normal TV program goes on and the watcher looses
information. The broadcasted explanation channel cannot be
personalized for each watcher. F~.rther, it is restricted to
topics rather than words due to the limited number of available
channels for broadcasting explanation, and a same channel may
contain explanation about several TV programs, which is not
useful.
There is a need for an automated method and system for
assisting a watcher of a TV program in getting or catching
information or explanation about words that he does not
understand.
A purpose of the present invention is to provide a
method and a system for automatically extracting words of a TV
program which may not be understood by the watchers, and to give
them the possibility of obtaining an explanation for some of
these words.
A technical problem exists in selecting the words
which have to be proposed to the watchers for explanation,
taking into account the fact that the different person does have
different cultural background.
Another technical problem exists in obtaining the
explanation about words or topics without using specific
broadcasting channels.
Another purpose of the present invention is to provide
a computer based apparatus and method to be associated with a
screen adapted to display TV programs for giving a watcher the
possibility of getting information and/or explanation about a
word that he hears or reads in the TV program and about which he
wants more information.
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Another purpose of the present invention is to provide
a system and method which do not require the watcher to type the
searched words on a keyboard.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
To attain the above purposes and others, the present
invention provides a computer based method for generating
information about words used in a TV program or the like,
comprising the steps of:
- automatically extracting a list of relevant words in
a TV program on the basis of the occurrences of the words in
that TV program, said extraction being updated in real time;
- displaying the extracted words on the TV screen;
- waiting for a selection of one of the extracted
words by the watcher;
- searching information about said selected word; and
- displaying this information on the TV screen.
According to the present invention, the words
appearing in a TV program are extracted on the basis of their
number of occurrences to determine the words for which an
2 0 explanation will be proposed. In other words, one defines a
window of number of occurrences to extract the words to be
displayed for selection by the watcher.
According to a first embodiment, the window of
occurrences is limited to two predetermined thresholds which may
be fixed by the manufacturer of the system, downloaded by the
broadcaster into the device, or chosen by the watcher.
According to another preferred embodiment, an auto-
adaptation of the windows of occurrences is provided. In other
words, the low and high thresholds of the windows are
automatically adapted in real time as goes the TV program. Such
an auto-adaptation can be based on a maximum predetermined
number of words to be displayed. It can also be based on
percentages of words among the total number of extracted words.
Preferably, the extracted words are chosen among a
pre-list of words stored with their occurrences in the TV
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program and in which predetermined common words are already
eliminated.
The extracted words of a TV program are preferentially
displayed on at least a dedicated line superposed to the TV
program, in the form of a list of words. The list is preferably
a scrolling list for displaying more words. The watcher may use
any selection device like a keyboard or a pointing device to
select an extracted word for which he wants information.
The information or explanation about the selected
words may originate from different sources. For example, one may
use a computerized dictionary which can be internal or external
to the system. Using an external dictionary is preferred because
it allows an updating of the information. For example, the
external dictionary may be constituted by a computerized
dictionary available on the Internet or on any specific network.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present
invention, the search of the explanation about a selected word
in a dictionary takes not only into account the word itself but
also the field in which it was used. Indeed, a same word may
have several meanings depending on the field. When automatically
extracting the words from a TV program, it is useful to know the
topic of the TV program whereby the appropriate meaning of the
words) can be selected.
Conventionally, dialogs of TV programs are also
broadcasted in written format broadcasted to provide "Teletext"
information. The Teletext format which is present in the flow of
the TV program is part of a specific sub-channel associated with
each broadcasted TV channel. According to a preferred embodiment
of the present invention, this available Teletext information is
used to search and extract the words considered as relevant to
be displayed for selection to the watcher.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
These purposes, features and advantages of preferred,
non limiting, embodiments of the present invention will be
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described by way of examples with reference to the accompanying
drawings, in which:
figure 1 schematically represents the main elements of
one exemplary embodiment of the system of the present invention;
5 figure 2 represents a TV image illustrating one
exemplary embodiment of the method according to the present
invention;
figure 3 is a flowchart of the main steps of one
exemplary embodiment of the method of word extraction according
to the present invention; and
figure 4 is a flowchart of the main steps of one
exemplary embodiment of catching word information according to
the present invention.
For clarity, only the elements and steps useful to the
understanding of the invention have been shown in the drawings
and will be disclosed hereafter. Especially, details of the
programming steps according to the system of the invention will
not be detailed as it will already be known to those skilled in
the art.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
With reference to figure 1, one exemplary embodiment
of a system for generating information about words used in a TV
program according to the principles of the present invention
includes a general purpose TV set 1 (or any analog system like,
for example, a personal computer equipped with a tuning card).
The TV set comprises a screen 2 and the conventional equipment
to receive and display TV programs and, for the implementation
of the present invention, a processing unit 3. The processing
unit 3 may be a circuit dedicated to the implementation of the
present invention or a general purpose central processing unit
like a CPU of a personal computer and is associated with the
necessary elements (memories, I/O devices) to execute a program
implementing the method of the present invention and store the
corresponding data.
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TV set 1 is linked to a reception element 4 which
might be an antenna or any connection to a wired or wireless
broadcasting network and, preferably, comprises an access to
Internet (WEB) 5. Such an access may be through a telephone line
6 or any conventional link.
To implement the present invention, the TV set 1 is
equipped with a selection tool to be used by the watcher for
selecting the words for which he wants more information as it
will be disclosed later. For example, the selection tool may be
a keyboard 7 or a pointing device like a mouse 8. Keyboard 7
and/or mouse 8 may communicate with the central processing unit
3 of the TV set through a wired 9 or wireless 10 link.
Alternatively, the selection tool may be included in
the TV set, or may correspond to conventional buttons 11 of the
TV set or of a remote control device (not shown) re-affected to
implement the invention.
With reference to figure 2, an image I displayed on
the TV set 1 comprises, for what concerns the invention, three
areas (other areas may be provided in the screen, for example in
a multi-windows display on a PC screen). A first area A1
corresponds to the part of the screen dedicated to displaying
the TV program. When the watcher does not select a word to get a
specific explanation, the area A1 preferably occupies the full
image I.
According to the present invention, the words W1, W2,
..., Wn extracted automatically from the TV program are
displayed, preferably on a scrolling form, on a second area A2.
Area A2 may comprise several lines (or columns) but preferably
corresponds to a single line (or column) of the screen,
scrolling the words W1, W2, ..., Wn.
A third area A3 of the image I is dedicated to
displaying the information or explanation collected according to
the invention about a word selected by the user. The area A3 is
preferably a temporary area. In other words, the surface of area
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A3 is affected to the area A1 for the TV program except during
the time necessary to display information about selected words.
Figure 3 represents a schematic flowchart of the steps
of generating the scroll line A2 of figure 2, according to a
preferred embodiment of the present invention.
According to this embodiment, the Teletext information
associated with the TV program is used to get the exhaustive
list of words of the TV program. Alternatively, one can use
other sources to obtain the words of the TV program. For
example, voice recognition means may be used to identify all the
different words pronounced by the persons appearing in the TV
program.
The first step of the method of the present invention
is to obtain a list of words to be processed, i.e. a pre-list of
words among which the system will extract and update, in real
time as the TV program goes on, the words to be displayed in
area A2 for selection. Therefore, after having separated the
words from the Teletext format (step 20, WORD SEPARATION), the
system extracts the current word (step 21, CURRENT WORD).
2 0 Preferably, a list of common words is pre-established
and stored in a memory of the system for containing the words
which are to be considered obviously as irrelevant whatever will
be the TV program (for example the common verbs, articles,
conjunctions, etc.). According to this embodiment, the current
word is searched in that list (test 22, COMMON WORD).
If the current word is a common one, the system
increments by one its number of occurrences, selects the next
word (bloc 23, NEXT) and returns to the bloc 21 for the new
current word.
If not, or if the test 22 is omitted, the current word
is taken into account (bloc 24, STORAGE OR UPDATING COUNT) in
the pre-list of words to be processed in order to determine
their relevance. The pre-list contains also the number of
occurrences of the stored words . If it is the first occurrence
of the word in the TV program, the current word is added to the
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pre-list. If the word is already present in the pre-list, its
number of occurrences is incremented.
Then, again in real time for each word, the system
determines if the current word has to be considered as relevant
(bloc 25, RELEVANT?). If yes, the scroll line (area A2) is
updated to incorporate the current word (and eventually suppress
another word from the extracted list).
According to the present invention, the relevance of a
word is based on the number of occurrences of that word in the
TV program. The system uses two thresholds between which the
number of occurrences is considered as representing a relevant
word. Accordingly, the words that appear very seldom are not
selected as a watcher will not be interested in words that occur
rarely. Also, the words that occur very frequently are
eliminated as such words are likely to be common words or words
that are well explained in the TV program of interest. The two
thresholds define a window of numbers of occurrences for
relevant words.
According to a first embodiment, the two thresholds
are predetermined, for example, fixed by the manufacturer of the
system, downloaded by the broadcaster into the device, or chosen
by the watcher.
According to a preferred embodiment, the thresholds
are updated along with the TV program, i.e. the number of
occurrences determining the relevance of the word is modified as
goes the TV program to be auto-adapted to the size of the pre-
list which grows up along with the TV program.
For the beginning of the TV program, one can either
wait for having a sufficient number of words to display (using a
threshold in time or in number of occurrences) or start with the
beginning of the TV program. In that last case, the first
displayed words may appear as irrelevant for the watcher.
However, words which are irrelevant will quickly disappear from
the scroll list due to the auto-adaptation of the thresholds.
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According to a first embodiment, the auto-adaptation
is based on a number of words to be displayed on the screen. For
example, if the number of words to be displayed is twenty, the
list of extracted words contains the twenty words of the pre-
y list which are central in the pre-list when sorted by number of
occurrences.
According to a second embodiment of the invention, the
window of relevant numbers of occurrences corresponds to
intermediate values of occurrences contained in the pre-list
after eliminating a percentage of the less and most frequent
words with respect to the total number of words of the pre-list.
For example, assuming that the percentages are thirty percent
for the less frequent words and fifty percent for the most
frequent words, and that the current number of words contained
in the pre-list is 110, the thresholds correspond to number of
occurrences of the words of rank 33 and 55 of the pre-list
sorted by number of occurrences increasingly.
The two above preferred embodiments may also be
combined.
If the current word is considered as relevant, the
list of extracted words is updated and the display of area A2 is
also modified (bloc 26, UPDATE SCROLL).
If not, the system goes directly to the step of
updating the thresholds (bloc 27, UPDATE THRESHOLDS) for taking
into account the increase of number of word occurrences.
Alternatively, the thresholds are not updated for each
loop of the method (i.e. for each word processed) but
periodically after a predetermined number of words.
Preferably, the list of extracted words is also
updated based on the time of presence of the words in the scroll
line, to eliminate the too old words.
The system considers then the next word (bloc 23 ) and
returns to the bloc 21 with this new current word.
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Figure 4 represents a schematic flowchart of the steps
of catching word information according to a preferred embodiment
of the present invention.
Once the words are displayed on the scroll lines) of
5 the screen, the user may select a word (step 30, WORD SELECTION)
for which he wants a definition 'or more information. The system
of the present invention then downloads the required definition
(step 31, DOWNLOAD DEFINITION) and displays the information
(step 32, DISPLAY) on the screen in the area A3. The duration of
10 the display of information may be prefix and/or the display can
disappear when the watcher presses a dedicated button.
Different ways may be provided for searching the
complementary information to be displayed on the screen.
According to a first embodiment, the TV set is linked
to a local dictionary (that embodiment applies in particular to
a personal computer) and the definition of the words is searched
in that dictionary.
According to another embodiment, one provides a link
to an external network (for example, Internet) to download the
information about the word. If using a network like Internet,
the search engines to be used for searching information about
the words are pre-selected in order to avoid too long search for
each selected word.
According to another embodiment, one uses a specific
dictionary prepared by the broadcaster and available, for
example, on a specific network or on a specific broadcasted
channel.
The word selection is, for example, performed by the
watcher either through a mouse 8 and a corresponding pointer on
the screen, or through the keyboard 7 and more specifically its
arrow buttons.
The dictionaries or encyclopedia used to find the
information relative to the selected words may be any type of
dictionary. For example, the broadcaster may include in the flux
of Teletext information about the field or domain of the TV
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program allowing the search engine of the system of the present
invention to select the correct meaning of a selected word. The
information relative to the field can also be used to select
some specific dictionaries according to the topics of the TV
program.
An advantage of the present invention is that it gives
more information to a watcher of the TV program with customized
information. Indeed, only if there are some words that a watcher
does not understand, the third area A3 of the screen will appear
to display the desired information.
Further, storage of words to be considered as
irrelevant could be updated, on the user side, to automatically
exclude some words chosen by the watcher. That storage may be
done with a specific selection action of the user on the
scrolling list. Then, when a TV program of the same field is
processed by the system, these words will be ignored
automatically in the test of common words (22, Fig. 3).
Another advantage of the present invention is that the
relevant list of words displayed on the screen is updated in
real time. Such an updating not only concerns adding some
supplemental words, but also suppressing other words either
because these words are out of the selecting window or because
the words are present for a too long time.
Another advantage of the present invention is that the
auto-adapting of the thresholds gives a system which can work
from the beginning to the end of a TV program.
Having thus described at least one illustrative
embodiment of the invention, various alterations, modifications
and improvements will readily occur to those skilled in the art.
In particular, the implementation of the present invention on
the basis of the functional explanation above is in the ability
of one skilled in the art . Further, the selection of a type of
dictionary and the threshold chosen according to the present
invention may be modified according to the application. Such
alterations, modifications, and improvements are intended to be
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within the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the
foregoing description is by way of example only and is not
intended to be limiting. The invention is limited only as
defined in the following claims and the equivalents thereto.
